The action affecting the estimated 2.1 million workers comes as Biden plans to outline a “robust plan to stop the spread of the delta variant and boost covid-19 vaccinations,” the White House said.
It’s expected to be a significant speech at a turning point for the United States, where hopes that vaccinations would ease the strain on hospitals and allow more social freedoms were dampened by the spread of the highly contagious variant. Biden also plans to call for a global summit, to be held during the U.N. General Assembly later this month, to respond to the coronavirus crisis and boost vaccine supply to the developing world.
The pressure on Biden is increasing as the public health outlook worsens. The seven-day average of coronavirus deaths across the United States was 1,524 as of Wednesday, compared with 509 one month ago, amid lackluster vaccine uptake in many states and controversies over mask and vaccine mandates.
Here’s what to know
Fauci says U.S. is ‘still in pandemic mode’
Anthony S. Fauci warns that the United States is “still in pandemic mode” because of the number of new coronavirus infections reported each day.
In an interview with Axios published Thursday, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said a rate of about 160,000 new infections a day is “not even modestly good control … which means it’s a public health threat.”
“In a country of our size, you can’t be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. You’ve got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable,” Fauci said in the interview. His comments suggested that coronavirus infections now are more than 10 times higher than the level needed to end the covid-19 pandemic.
As of Thursday, average daily new cases in the United States are over 149,000, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.
Fauci noted to Axios that once enough individuals have been vaccinated, “you’ll still get some people getting infected, but you’re not going to have it as a public health threat.”
New federal study shows safety net helped prevent widespread hunger during the pandemic
Despite a world-altering pandemic, the number of American households struggling with hunger remained nearly constant last year, buoyed by significant federal safety net programs, according to a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Agriculture Department.
However, food assistance programs may not have reached populations equally, according to the report, as food insecurity during the pandemic improved for some while worsening for others. Households with children were twice as likely to experience food insecurity as households without children, according to the report.
Black Americans were 3.2 times more likely than White Americans to be food insecure, and Hispanic Americans were 2.5 times more likely to be food insecure than Whites. Households in Southern states also experienced more hunger than those in northern states.
Biden expected to sign executive order requiring federal employees to be vaccinated
Biden is expected to sign an executive order requiring all federal employees to be vaccinated amid a surge in coronavirus cases and pandemic deaths.
The president is scheduled to lay out his strategy late Thursday for dealing with the pandemic in remarks from the White House.
The requirement for the estimated 2.1 million civilian workers will give them no option of regular testing to opt out of the requirement, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity ahead of the president’s 5 p.m. remarks.
Covid cases have topped more than 150,000, while deaths are more than 1,000 a day as the delta variant has taken a toll.
More students in Maryland head to school for the first time in 18 months
More than 100,000 students filled classrooms and hallways in Maryland’s second-largest school system Wednesday, many of them back for the first time in 18 months as a new school year started amid the persisting pandemic.
Parents and students in Prince George’s County waited in lines outside school doors, excited for a day so long anticipated. But for many the thrill was tinged with a lingering anxiety, as the coronavirus crisis continues and pediatric cases get more attention.
More than 12,000 students in kindergarten through sixth grade opted for virtual instruction this fall, as part of a program in place until children younger than 12 are eligible for vaccination.
Key coronavirus updates from around the world
Here’s what to know about the top coronavirus stories around the globe from news service reports.
- Parts of Japan, including Tokyo and Osaka, will extend pandemic-related restrictions until at least the end of the month as the country struggles to contain a fifth wave of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, the Australian state of New South Wales unveiled a blueprint of its lockdown that could kick in Oct. 18.
- In Latin America and the Caribbean, the pandemic threatens “to wipe away 20 years of hard-fought gains” in reducing maternal mortality, Carissa F. Etienne, director of the WHO’s Pan American Health Organization, said at a news conference Wednesday.
- In the United Kingdom, regulators gave a stamp of approval for booster shots, saying on Thursday that “the Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and AstraZeneca can be used as safe and effective booster doses.” The decision on whether to actually administer them is now in the hands of the government and its advisory committee.
- At a military parade in North Korea broadcast Thursday, rows of people dressed head to toe in orange coronavirus protective gear marched.
- In India, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a “substantial proportion of students and their parents” surveyed by UNICEF “reported that students learned significantly less” in 2020 compared with pre-pandemic years.
Novavax launches early trials for combined covid-19 and influenza vaccine
Novavax, the Gaithersburg, Md.-based pharmaceutical company, is launching early-stage trials to test the safety and efficacy of a vaccine that aims to combat both the coronavirus and seasonal influenza, the company said on Wednesday.
The study will involve 640 healthy adults between ages 50 and 70 in Australia. The participants must have previously been infected with the coronavirus, or been vaccinated at least eight weeks before the study. Novavax expects to obtain results during the first half of 2022.
“The combination of these two vaccines … may lead to greater efficiencies for the healthcare system and achieve high levels of protection against covid-19 and influenza with a single regimen,” Gregory M. Glenn, the president of Novavax’s research and development, said in a statement.
Novavax has not been able to release its coronavirus vaccine to the wider public after unexpected problems in manufacturing and securing raw materials forced the company to delay filing for regulatory approvals in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and other developed economies.
That was despite the company in June saying its coronavirus vaccine showed an overall 90.4 percent efficacy rate against the disease, after concluding a 29,000-person trial. The vaccine demonstrated 100 percent success in preventing moderate to severe symptoms among those infected with the deadly coronavirus.
The vaccine had shown a 96 percent efficacy against the original virus strain but had produced rates of 86 percent for the alpha variant first discovered in the United Kingdom, and a rate of about 49 percent for the beta variant most commonly seen in South Africa.
In May, the company said the combination of its covid-19 and influenza vaccine had shown positive immune responses to both diseases in a preclinical study.
Don’t tell students if their classmates get coronavirus, University of Delaware warns faculty
The University of Delaware is warning its faculty not to tell students if a classmate gets a confirmed case of the coronavirus.
The change in protocol was sent in an email on Wednesday that was reviewed by The Washington Post. Rising cases on campus have strained the university’s special accommodations for those who contract covid-19.
The email said that “if an instructor is notified by a student that the student has covid-19, the instructor may not tell the class that someone has tested positive for covid-19.”
United Airlines employees who get vaccine exemptions must take temporary leaves, company says
United Airlines employees who receive religious or medical exemptions from the company’s coronavirus vaccine requirement will be required to take temporary leaves of absence starting next month, company officials said Wednesday.
“Given the dire statistics … we can no longer allow unvaccinated people back into the workplace until we better understand how they might interact with our customers and their vaccinated co-workers,” Kirk Limacher, United’s vice president of human resources, wrote in a memo to employees.
Employees who receive religious exemptions will be put on voluntary unpaid leave, while those who receive medical exemptions will be placed on temporary medical leave, according to the memo. The leaves will begin Oct. 2.
Supreme Court to resume in-person hearings, but building still closed to public
The Supreme Court will return to its historic courtroom in Washington to hear arguments when its term begins Oct. 4, but the hearings will be conducted without the public in attendance.
The court announced Wednesday that because of the coronavirus pandemic, the building remains closed except for official business.
“Courtroom access will be limited to the Justices, essential Court personnel, counsel in the scheduled cases, and journalists with full-time press credentials issued by the Supreme Court,” the court said in a news release.
Your call was important to Glen Palaje. It may have cost him his life.
QUEZON CITY, Philippines — To his seven children, Glen Palaje was a jack of all trades: carpenter, cook, musician. To his colleagues, he was also “Dad," the eldest on a team of call-center workers that handled queries from AT&T customers.
Palaje had spent eight years at Teleperformance, a business process outsourcing company. As the pandemic ravaged the Philippines last summer, he joined a team that worked and slept in the office.
Three days after he developed a cough, he was sent home, his daughter Marigold Palaje said. The weekend before he could begin remote work, he collapsed and, after a midnight rush to the hospital, was pronounced dead on arrival. A week went by before his relatives learned the cause of death: covid-19.
When Americans place calls to their banks, online retailers and telephone providers, many are answered by call-center workers in the Philippines, who number more than a million. Until August 2020, Palaje, 50, was one of them.
Conditions in the industry are facing scrutiny as advocates tally thousands of coronavirus cases and accuse companies and the government of not doing enough to stop their spread. Reports to the Business Process Outsourcing Industry Employees’ Network, or BIEN, and interviews with agents paint a dark side to one of the most coveted careers among young Filipinos — from badly ventilated offices that became virus hotbeds, to workers plunged into financial precarity.
Hogan seeks to protect vulnerable nursing home residents with third coronavirus shots
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Wednesday authorized the state’s nursing homes and other congregant care facilities to consider residents 65 and older immunocompromised, making them immediately eligible to receive a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
The Biden administration has pushed for adults who received the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines to get a booster shot eight months after receiving their second dose, starting Sept. 20. But the plan requires approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it may initially be limited to recipients of the Pfizer vaccine.
Biden is expected to call for global vaccine summit
President Biden is planning to call for a global summit to respond to the coronavirus crisis and boost vaccine supply to the developing world, said three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the pending announcement.
The summit would be held during the United Nations General Assembly meetings the week of Sept. 20. Topics would include coordination among leaders worldwide to collectively tackle the health crisis and address inequities, including that the developing world has lagged behind on vaccinations.
Biden is set to give a speech detailing his coronavirus strategy Thursday, although the announcement of the global summit could come before the speech, the people said.
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